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On 12 Apr 2005 18:05:57 -0700, gcmschemist@gmail.com wrote:

>Well, Andy, since you can't stop humping every post I make in a.a.a

Not intentionally every post, just those where you spout selfish and
blinkered views on top-posting and bizarre analogies that attempt to
justify your views by distorting the situation. Now then, if that
turns out to be all that you post in a.a.a, then I guess it might seem
like I'm replying to each post you make....

>(except one, if I see correctly), let's just end this here. I suspect
>you either need to get the last word in, or you're taking a piss.

Taking a piss?!

> If the former, you'll be jubilant. If the latter, saddened that I'm
>taking your fun away.

I'd just be happy that you stop top-post whining and learn to accept
another style. Believe me, it'll make you a much happier person. I'm
doing you a favour here!

>So, let's just start with where you're mistaken, and move on from
>there:
>
>1.) You mischaracterized my first post regarding top-posting as a
>whine.

OK, so it was your *second* post to the thread that whined about
top-posting, not your first... Jeeez...

> It was a response to a top-poster who was complaining about the
> quality of another's posting habits.

At least he was complaining about the *content* of what someone said,
rather than how they chose to lay it out!

> We won't call your characterization a lie, we'll call it "fanciful."

Your second post to the thread whined about top-posting. This is not a
lie, this is not fanciful, it's a nailed on honest fact.

>2.) You have mischaracterized my opposition to top-posting as "wanting
>to stamp [it] out." Only a total idiot would think that any person can
>stamp out anything in usenet.

<bites tongue>

> It's more likely to stamp out a forest fire. I can do no more to
> halt top-posting than you can to halt spam.

I'm glad you realise this.

>3.) You claim (without even the slightest evidence) that top-posting
>is "welcome and preferred" by a great many people.

Here's an example: try microsoft.public.vc.atl. Bottom or interleaved
posting is still the majority, but top-posting is extremely prevalent
(perhaps 25% of posts), and no-one bats an eyelid, gets confused or
complains. There are some *very* smart people in there talking about
some extremely complicated constructs and concepts. When explaining
things of such magnitude, to complain about how it's laid out seems
just *so* pathetic and irrelevant.

> I would say the same proportion of folks "welcome and prefer"
> beastiality for fun and profit.

Again, your analogy (yet another analogy), does not apply. I tire of
explaining why, but it's the usual problem.

> I suspect that the vast majority of top-posters do it because
> they are ignorant, lazy or selfish.

Then it is your suspicion that is ignorant. Why don't you *ask* some
top-posters why they do it? What do you expect they might reply? One
of your above suggestions, or perhaps merely "because I prefer it".

> They don't know it's poor netiquette, they do know, but don't
> care to change where their cursor is,
> or they know, but do it on purpose for whatever reason.

And by saying "whatever reason", you're admitting that you don't
actually know. Think about this. Could it just be that "whatever
reason", is simply that they prefer it and many of the people they
talk to prefer it also?

Is that possibility *really* so hard to believe?

> Further, I suspect the first group to be far and away the largest of
> the three. I discount the last group as being like the group of folks
> who feel having a cell conversation during a film is OK.

More bad analogy....

> As far as being welcomed? I think it's merely tolerated.

Loads of people use it. Do you think they are "merely tolerating", its
use by others?

Really?

> Mostly, I tolerate it too.

That's good. Learn to embrace it and you'll be much less uptight. It's
really not something to be concerned or upset about.

> Except when top-posters start making critiques of posting style.

The post to which you initially responded was IMO actually critiquing
the content, not the layout. Remember that he went on to say "It's the
contents that matter to me, my friend. Layouts are for marketeers".

I think you may have called that one wrong.

> I don't see much welcoming. "Hey, thanks for
> top-posting!" You never read that anywhere.

You know why? It's because top-posters aren't so about posting
styles - they don't whine, they don't write FAQs, they just get on
with posting and having conversations. That *is* what we're here for
isn't it?

>4.) You claim against available evidence that posting style is merely
>personal preference. The RFC posting guidelines show this to be
>untrue. While not "law", nor enforceable at all, RFC guidelines are
>about as official as it's going to get. And until they are revised,
>top-posting will be "quasi-officially" against netiquette.

The appropriate RFC (http://rfc.net/rfc1855.html have you even read
it?), gives some weak and vague suggestion as to posting style. It
doesn't even allow for an interleaved posting style (as both you and I
have been using), since it says we should only leave a quote at the
top of the message. Bizarrely it acknowledges failures in
proliferation of messages in usenet yet suggests we shouldn't leave a
full quote (for reference - despite this being the best way to address
that problem). It also makes no mention of quoting for reference and
only talks about context quoting - something which top-posting does
not require.

In the very next section it also implies that one should use a valid
email address and include it in your sig in case it gets stripped
somewhere along the way (it does not mention obfuscating it). Now
then, given address harvesting, hardly anyone includes a valid email
address these days.

Hence my comments that the RFC does not reflect common sense, popular
usage and, being 10 years old, is largely out of date (many RFCs
probably suffer from this). Even yourself are 'in breach' of it for
reasons outlined above.

>5.) This argument is weakly bolstered by claiming that the RFC
>guidelines are "behind the times."

See above. This is fact.

> This is nothing more than a rhetorical smokescreen which hides
> circular logic.

LOL! Pardon?! Care to explain that! It's a *lovely* soundbite but it
means nothing WRT any of my arguments!

Oh and, see above, where I explain how it's *actually* a fact.

> The reason so many newbies top-post is because crummy software
> sent along with the vast majority of PCs isn't RFC-compliant.

Why does that affect how they post, and which alternative software
does something different to affect the way they post differently?

> Even Google's "reply" link defaults to top-posting.

By doing what? If I'm interleaving my post, I'd want the cursor at the
top to start with. If I'm bottom-posting, I'd still want the cursor at
the top so as I can trim.

If you place the cursor at the bottom automatically, all that's likely
to happen is that bottom-posters will get lazy about trimming (as
top-posters often are) since they're not forced to scroll through to
find their spot (as top posters are not).

> I have it on good authority that this will change in the first non-beta
> release.

Really? By whom?

> Just because a bunch of people unwittingly do a rude thing
> doesn't imply that that thing is not rude anymore.

There are many customs in different countries which you might find
rude, or customs of yours that they might find rude. Do you think
their customs are wrong? Or in that instance would you respect their
customs?

>In any case, the "times have changed" argument is more assertion
>without proof.

I've provided various examples in my explanation of the RFC above.

The RFC itself (http://rfc.net/rfc1855.html) has a date of 1995.

That's 10 years ago.

Things on the internet have changed *massively* in the last 10 years,
including bandwidth and local storage (rendering trimming much less of
an issue), and always-on connections (making ad hoc and far more
granular conversations much more prevalent). Even the demographics of
users has changed massively in that time. All this adds up to
different usage patterns which the RFC has failed to reflect.

If you're going to claim that there's no proof that "times have
changed", then quite frankly I'm going to laugh and laugh and laugh.

> When the RFC is changesd, then this will be a
> meaningful argument.

Why? I'm saying that it's out of date. It doesn't have to be updated
in order to prove that it was out of date - you only have to show how
it's out of date, as I did above. What curious logic you have!

>6.) As long as top-posting turns natural reading (top-to-bottom,
>chronological order) on it's head, it will always be resisted.

But it doesn't. It's simply presenting reference quotes in stack
order. Each person's contribution is obviously presented in the
correct order. "Natural reading", is *not* to read a quote of what
you've just read in the prior post. You simply read the new material.

>Now, having said all that, let's just get to your problems with logic,
>shall we?

I can hardly wait ;-)

>1.) Comparison by analogy was good enough for Socrates, so it's good
>enough for me. It's a fine red herring, however.
>BTW, "analogy" <> "the very same thing".

Of course not, but it *is* supposed to be at least analogous, to make
*some* sense at least. Yours haven't been for the reasons I've been
outlining. You've simply been thinking of a situation where a
behaviour *is* rude and then pretending that's got something in common
with top-posting (which it never had) and that it somehow makes
top-posting rude too!

Like I say, your dependency on so-called analogies to try and make
your points sound valid tells its own story.

>Look it up in a dictionary, if necessary.

Er.. right, thanks.

>2.) You make some distinction about rude behavior as needing a third
>party to welcome it.

Only if you want to compare it to top-posting. Y'see in order for your
analogies with top-posting to make sense, the behaviour you compare it
with has to be perfectly acceptable - both to and by those who
practice it - since top-posters are happy to see other people
top-post*

* Unless of course, you can find a top-post-whiner who actually
top-posts himself....

> Well, one would imagine that there is more than
> one all-caps, HTML, binaries-in-text-only, -spammer, etc in
> existence. There's your third party - all the others who think that
> it's just fine to plop down in a theater seat and make running
> commentary to their next-seat neighbor. Etc, etc, etc.

<sigh> You're still not getting the third-party aspect are you.
Suggesting that there might be multiple people with these behaviours
does not suggest that they have a preference for other people to
exhibit that behaviour.

And you're *still* spouting poor analogies.

>3.) Shifting from the individual to the global and back again to try
>and score rhetorical points is dishonest. If you want to have a
>meanigful discussion (it seems that with you, this is a doubtful
>proposition,) you may want to try and use real logic, instead of
>attempting to obfuscate.

I have absolutely no idea what you're trying to reference here or how
it relates to *anything* I have ever said. Perhaps you could start by
at least making a quote or a reference alongside your claims?
Otherwise, this just sounds like something you've cut and pasted from
some other prior argument you've had! Ending the section by claiming
I've been "attempting to obfuscate", is just irony itself!

>4.) Quotes in stack order is fine for folks who do RPN or other such
>archaic computing tasks. But people don't read like that.

AFAIAA Usenet or email quoting does not have any precursor in prior
communication methods or media. Unless of course you can suggest one?

> People read top-to-bottom. In every society with written language.

As do people in top-posted threads. The quote is provided for
reference.

You *do* get the difference between reference and context quoting
don't you?

> Even footnotes are presented in semi-interspersed format.

Footnotes and appendixes are presented after the new text. They tend
to be provided for reference y'know.

> Stack style is not natural to the vast, overwhelming majority of
> readers of the English language.

It's a style that has emerged out of necessity on usenet. As I said
above, prior to this, people simply didn't make block quotes before
replying. It doesn't happen in spoken word, it doesn't happen in
books, it doesn't happen in written letters, it simply didn't happen.

If you're going to say that, then note that having each line begin
with a '>' character *also* isn't "natural to the vast, overwhelming
majority of readers of the English language", but you don't seem to be
complaining about that. It's just a new thing, borne of the desire to
make quotes in usenet or email conversations.

>5.) The ad hominem style ("can't handle top-posting", "learn some new
>tricks.") or other such logical fallacies aren't persuasive.

Do you honestly think you've been persuasive in your style WRT wanting
people to bottom post? Really? How about how you've been saying that
people are lazy, ignorant or selfish?

Is *that* being persuasive?

> If you cannot address the issue, attacking *me* doesn't make your
> point more clear, or your logic more air-tight.

You implied I'd been name-calling. I asked you to quote me doing so.
You didn't come back with anything. Why is that? *I* know the answer
of course...

> Strawman arguments are strawman arguments whether or not
> they're phrased as a question.

'fraid not - since I *didn't* give my conclusion based on the answer
(since you never gave one), I only asked the question. Where it was
leading might have been clear (hence you avoiding answering it), but I
didn't suppose your answer and didn't present my conclusion.

This was no strawman. Not even a little bit.

> If you can't use logic to make your case, then it really wasn't
> that strong to begin with.

Read that again. Think about how many poor analogies you've attempted
to make and then read that again. Listen out for a penny dropping.

>6.) Finally (hey - stop that cheering), if it were only *my*
>preference, or only *my* wish, then I sure as hell would not try and
>jam my minority views down anyone's throat.

Does the fact that it's a majority view make that behaviour any more
correct? I don't think so...

>Unlike the majority of
>top-posting defenders, who moan and whine because they are not being
>treated fairly. And they share that attribute with about 100% of
>immature folks whose errant ways are pointed out. They pout about the
>unfairness of it all.

And it *is* unfair for you to expect someone else to take on board
your preferences. Why the hell should they do that any more than you
would take on board theirs? In a system where more than one standard
can work side by side, why is there even any need to?

>I hope that provides ample grist for your response mill - I don't plan
>on responding to any more of your posts. Have fun with your response
>to this post - I am pointedly not going to read it.

Ah yes, an extremely typical behaviour of someone so markedly
blinkered and stubborn in their viewpoint (in fact, you did say a few
days ago that you wouldn't change your position no matter what was
said). You even go to the lengths of saying that you're not going to
read the reply. Kinda like sticking your fingers in your ears and
going "la la la la la", to avoid being told what you don't want to
hear. One has to be curious as to why he felt the need to tell me this
however, rather than simply not reading it...

andyt